soltera.
my wish has come true. i will be living alone again this time next week. i don't do well with roommates...never have. There is a long trail of ashes from the bridges that i have burned by living with people. My dear friend Mark pointed out years ago that i am so social that it is required that i come home to no one. I am wondering if he was just being nice...i know that the truth is that i am temperamental and i have a low tolerance for the personal habits of others. The sounds that someone makes while eating, the rhythm of their step, the pitch and tone of a voice- all of these, after a certain amount of time- become offensive and punishable to me. i would be in my bed, just waking up after some unspeakable dream, to hear my soon-to-be former roommate smacking her lips and chewing in the kitchen and the first five minutes of my morning were tainted...but all of that is nothing compared to the real issue...
Every morning she would practically yell "good morning" to me in an unnatural sort of chirp and when i responded softly or only nodded, she would gaze at me with wounded eyes. This would continue when i came home at night, whereby she would issue the Spanish Inquisition... only with the tone and sincerity of a game show host. She has a dating profile and her chosen headline is "I didn't know that being happy was a crime." That sentence sums up why she and i are fundamentally incompatible.
I'll explain: Being happy is not a crime...inflicting a Disneyland, prozac-like mania on everyone is.
The fact that I generally do not chirp and whirl at 6am does not mean that I am "unhappy"... however, the fact that anyone would feel victimized by my distinctive lack of chirp leads me to believe that there is something deeply inauthentic about the chirp in question.
i found simpatico with this concept when i was in France.
In France (and in fact most places in the world outside the United States of America) the way that one can spot an American (other than the white socks) is the fact that we, as a people, generally tend to walk around with a big ol' smile on our faces. In fact we are famous for it. In Oaxaca, Mexico people joke about it... they think our smile is funny... they want to know what the fuck we are smiling about. Aside from the obvious.. you know... like being on some happy pill and coming from a country with clean water and money to burn... the rest of the world cannot comprehend our perpetual delight. The "have a nice day ask-me-how-i-am-meanwhile-scurrying-off
-because-you-don't-actually-care-but-you-are-just-being-nice-and-while-you-are-at-
it-turn-that-frown-upside-down mentality really only exists here. I dunno... it just kind of seems smug. I am not suggesting that we swing to the opposite extreme either... i mean, who wants to deal with a laconic and moody society? Just something real...not forced...not fake.
Every morning she would practically yell "good morning" to me in an unnatural sort of chirp and when i responded softly or only nodded, she would gaze at me with wounded eyes. This would continue when i came home at night, whereby she would issue the Spanish Inquisition... only with the tone and sincerity of a game show host. She has a dating profile and her chosen headline is "I didn't know that being happy was a crime." That sentence sums up why she and i are fundamentally incompatible.
I'll explain: Being happy is not a crime...inflicting a Disneyland, prozac-like mania on everyone is.
The fact that I generally do not chirp and whirl at 6am does not mean that I am "unhappy"... however, the fact that anyone would feel victimized by my distinctive lack of chirp leads me to believe that there is something deeply inauthentic about the chirp in question.
i found simpatico with this concept when i was in France.
In France (and in fact most places in the world outside the United States of America) the way that one can spot an American (other than the white socks) is the fact that we, as a people, generally tend to walk around with a big ol' smile on our faces. In fact we are famous for it. In Oaxaca, Mexico people joke about it... they think our smile is funny... they want to know what the fuck we are smiling about. Aside from the obvious.. you know... like being on some happy pill and coming from a country with clean water and money to burn... the rest of the world cannot comprehend our perpetual delight. The "have a nice day ask-me-how-i-am-meanwhile-scurrying-off
-because-you-don't-actually-care-but-you-are-just-being-nice-and-while-you-are-at-
it-turn-that-frown-upside-down mentality really only exists here. I dunno... it just kind of seems smug. I am not suggesting that we swing to the opposite extreme either... i mean, who wants to deal with a laconic and moody society? Just something real...not forced...not fake.
posted by sozhina at 27.10.06
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